Departmental Updates

Arts and Sciences graduate students at Tufts University excel in a variety of areas each academic year. The links below provide a glimpse at some of their outstanding achievements.

2007-2008
2006-2007

Adriana Zavala

assistant professor, art and art history

Current Research: "My book on images of women in 20th-century Mexican art is forthcoming.   I am now working on a new project titled: Imaginative Geographies: Mexico City in the Artistic Imagination.  The project focuses on Mexico City as a subject in the artistic imagination, with an emphasis on contemporary visual artists and filmmakers that take Mexico City as their principal subject. "

Why Tufts:  "I was very interested in Tufts' commitment to internationalism and having researched the university and the Department of Art History I was confident that it was the right place for me, intellectually and philosophically. The students are also exceptionally dedicated and I have supervised several top quality master’s theses."

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Claire Conceison

assistant professor, drama

Current Research:  "My main area of research is contemporary Chinese theatre practice and how it reflects political, cultural, and economic shifts in society. I return to China every year to research what is currently on stage, what is in the planning stages for the years ahead, and to interview playwrights, actors, directors, and educators. Currently, I’m working on a few different projects, one of which is a collaborative autobiography of the late Ying Ruocheng, a prominent actor/director and vice minister of culture in China during the 1980s."

Latest Book:  Significant Other: Staging the American in China (about how Americans have been portrayed in mainland Chinese plays during the past fifteen years).

Why Tufts:   "Tufts embraces scholarship that reaches across boundaries, contests entrenched theories, and engages with discourses of transnationalism, interculturalism, and globalization—all important facets of my own research and teaching."

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Ellen Pinderhughes

associate professor and chair, child development

Current Research:  "In my research program, I seek to contribute an understanding of developmental processes in families whose children are at risk for dysfunctional behavior so that policies, interventions and services can be improved or designed to facilitate optimal child outcomes."

Why Tufts: "I was impressed by the commitment that the university has to educating, training and preparing students for leadership in an increasingly diverse world.  The combination of a strong undergraduate program that has strong links between academic and service endeavors and a very strong graduate program in my department was quite attractive. I was particularly attracted to the multidisciplinary energy in the Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development that is focused on understanding children and families in the context of their cultures and on enhancing their lives through research, practice or policy advocacy."

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Hee-Sun Lee

assistant professor, education

Current Research: "I’m interested in investigating the effects and the effectiveness of inquiry-based curriculum material. I look at various assessment methods to measure whether and how they are working. Traditionally, people look at pre and post-tests to see if a curriculum is working, which doesn’t reveal what is happening in the middle of the curriculum period. I not only use the pre and post-tests but also collect data during the curriculum period, to develop learning trajectories before, during, and after instruction. I want to make all the links to examine how a curriculum is working. This includes looking at traditional assessments, but also projects, conversations, artifacts, explanations, and responses to curriculum prompts. This is a more authentic way of understanding what’s happening in the classroom."

Why Tufts: "Boston is an exciting place and there are so many universities that are close by that you can reach anyone you want to. Also, the education department is a very close department where everyone knows each other. You don’t have to go through a large organizational structure to get something done. You just go to the person and talk to them."

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Julian Agyeman

associate professor, urban and environmental policy and planning

Current Research:  "I’m investigating the nexus between environmental justice and sustainable development movements, based on the conviction that permanent social and environmental policy change requires the vision of sustainable development and the awareness of justice, including a more equal distribution of resources and wealth."

Most Recent Book:  "Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice puts forward the idea that social justice and environmental protection can be achieved through the concept of  'just sustainability'; a middle ground, or bridging paradigm between the stewardship-focus of environmental sustainability, and the anti-racist and anti-classist focus of the environmental justice movement."

Why Tufts:  "I’m part of a community where students are of such high quality. I am really impressed with their commitment to wanting to change the world. My students help with my research and challenge me constantly."

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Keith Maddox

associate professor, psychology

Current Research:  "I'm interested in racial phenotypicality bias, which is the role that physical characteristics of the face play in the activation and application of racial stereotypes, particularly among African-Americans.  I'm involved in laboratory research on the Tufts campus, and I'm currently exploring opportunities to expand this research by establishing partnerships with individuals and organizations in the communities surrounding Tufts.  I also have graduate students who are interested in other issues surrounding stereotyping and prejudice, including the role of race in our perceptions of potential recipients of help, the role of race and gender in academic achievement, and how claims of racial or gender discrimination in the workplace may impact the way a person is perceived by others."

Finding:  "My work has focused largely on one feature, skin tone.  Variability on this feature among Blacks is important, as those with lighter skin tone are stereotyped to a lesser degree than those with darker skin tone.  I've shown that people see variation in skin tone as a meaningful social variable.  This work has challenged previous research in social psychology which assumed that the variability in appearance found among racial categories was not important when it came to social perception and judgment."

Why Tufts:   "Tufts University provides an atmosphere where teaching and research are both valued.  I find that maintaining a balance between the two is often quite challenging. But these efforts can be rewarding when the right institutional supports are in place."

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Krishna Kumar

professor and department chair, chemistry

Current Research:  De novo design and construction of proteins, especially those with nonstick properties; also probing the evolution of proteins by using bioinformatics to deconstruct enzymes to the smallest pieces that still have catalytic properties.

About his work:   "We use two complementary approaches. One is to take inspiration from biology, to push the frontiers of understanding of how biology works and use that understanding to do chemistry. The second is to use chemistry to endow extra-biological properties to molecules and organisms."

Why Tufts:  "We have a dual mission of education and research, and I find that Tufts does both quite well. They are synergistic—you can’t do cutting-edge research without engaging in and benefiting from teaching, and students must be involved in pushing the research envelope to receive a top education and train other students."

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L. Michael Romero

professor, biology

Current Research:  Using neuroscience, physiology, and ecology—in the lab and in the field—to learn about stress in vertebrates, specifically how levels of stress-related hormones released in an animal are barometers for how well it is coping with its environment; currently focused on what role those hormones play in survival.

Why Tufts:  "It's rare to find a department where faculty members co-author papers the way we do here. That’s because it’s rare to find a biology department with such a wide range of faculty as  we have—including a physiologist, plant scientist, ecologist, neurobiologist, molecular biologist, geneticist, conservation biologist, and animal behaviorist. Tufts also is unusual in the closeness graduate students have with their advisers; most of our biology labs have only two or three graduate students in them."

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Lisa Shin

associate professor, psychology

Current Research: Using neuroimaging techniques to examine brain function in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), specifically the roles of brain structures like the amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus

Why Tufts:  " It’s small and personal with really bright students. Its location is also ideal, because the Boston area provides many opportunities for collaboration with other researchers."

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Richard Lerner

professor, child development; 
Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science; 
director, Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development

Current research: Groundbreaking work on the nature of positive development among adolescents. Several longitudinal studies are underway exploring how adolescents develop in positive ways and how this development is juxtaposed with risk behaviors (alcohol, drug use, unsafe sex, delinquency, etc.) often seen during this period

Latest Book: Liberty: Thriving and Civic Engagement Among America's Youth

Why Tufts:  "Tufts has a great liberal arts tradition and is making a difference in the world for individuals, communities, and civil society more generally. Having the opportunity to work at an institution that has this traditional excellence and yet this commitment, this pillar, to application to real world service is just an enormous opportunity, a great gift."

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